4.25.2013

The Power of the Written Word

Today, I have absolutely nothing domestically related to share.  Well, I do, but that won't be what this particular post is about, because I am just not there in my mind.  Why not, you ask?  Well, I'll tell you!

I have been reading a particular book series since my Junior year in high school (The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan for those who are just dying to know).  A few hours ago, I finally read the last word in the last sentence on the last page of the last book...ever.  Boom.  Suddenly, the nearly twelve year journey I had been on was at an end (this makes me 29 for those of you who are frantically trying to do the math to figure out just how old I really am.  I, personally, try not to think about it (Math or my age)).  

James Oliver Rigney, Jr.
Pen Name: Robert Jordan
1948-2007
Jordan and I, we'd been on a pretty wild ride together.  I mean our relationship has lasted longer than my marriage, longer than the Mr. and I have even known one another!  We've laughed and we've cried together.  One of us even died, but the story went on (thanks to his wife and editor, Harriet, and Brandon Sanderson, the author who stepped up and completed the works.  Way tah beeee!).

This all has me feeling a bit drained, mentally, physically, emotionally, but in that generally satisfied way that comes with knowing you've completed something.  At the moment, I'm having a hard time deciding how I feel.  Mainly I think I may be in shock that, after all this time, it's over... for now.

The greatest theme in this particular series has been that there are "neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time.  But it was a beginning."  The final words, perhaps inevitably, were "There are no endings, and never will be endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.  But it was an ending."  

The journey may have ended for me, this time around, but (as I have done several times over the years, when a new book was set to be released) I can start the journey all over again, back at the beginning.  I can share these and other stories with those I love.

I digress.  This, believe it or not, Ripley, isn't specifically about the series I've been nattering on about for 20 minutes (though to readers, it's probably more like two?).  It's about the kind of devotion that the written word can instill in people.  For me, it was these books (and I'll be honest, many, many, others, but this was the Big Kahuna), for others it may be a simple poem or a news article that really reaches down and grabs something in you.  For those people who maintain they "don't read" and don't have a care to, I pfft! at you.  Have you ever seen a movie that was just da-BOMB (...I am so not pulling off that slanguage...)?  Guess what, somebody put the proverbial pen to paper (these days "fingers to keys" is more likely) for that too.  Songs too!

The point is, that there is so much power in words.  We can use them to entertain, sadden, hurt, or delight.  We can create entire new worlds or explore the one we're living in with just some nouns and consonants pushed together!  Whoa.  That is epic.  

As a self proclaimed writer (though maybe my degree (English-Creative Writing) gives me more street cred than that?), I am very careful about what words and use and how.  Like Spiderman says (or, rather, the writer who created Spiderman's dialogue) "with great power, comes great responsibility."  I don't know if I will ever be one of the greats like Tolkien, Jordan, Martin, or Lewis (What?  I loves me some epic fantasy.  Way better than a angsty girl in Washington obsessing over a sparkly vampire man-boy), but that's not the point.  

The point is the transcendence beyond yourself that can be found in the written word (even if you watch it in pictures on the TV screen) and isn't that worth more than words? (Like the play there, words are more than words, get it? *wink, wink*)

3 comments:

  1. I somehow stumbled across your blog and here I am. I love this post. You pretty much summed up how i felt when I finished this series. I'm sad to see that you have stopped your blog, but what you have written is very entertaining. Thanks for sharing!

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  2. Thank you so much! I've less quit writing and more just been on a very, very long hiatus due to not one, but now a second!, pregnancy! Knowing that someone actually stumbled on my little piece of blogdom and enjoyed it makes me want to write again, so thank you a second time!!

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